114 andrew w. pitts
pseudonymity-based interpretation of language variation in the Pauline
canon seem severely out of step with what we know today about the
linguistic requirements needed to undertake statistical-based studies
of authorship and the deep levels of linguistic diversity most language
users are capable of. a register designed style-shift interpretation seems
to explain all of the data that pseudonymity-based interpretations are
capable of, without the attendant problems, and is accompanied not only
by a rich theoretical background but voluminous field study reports of
high levels of variation (in controlled environments where we know a sin-
gle author was involved) in response to register variation. although this
essay is experimental, exploring the potential implications of a register
design model of style for authorship studies in Pauline scholarship, the
initial results gathered seem at least suggestive of the fruitfulness—if not
the superiority—of a register design interpretation over pseudonymity-
based interpretations in evaluating language variation within the Pauline
canon.
Linguistic Criteria for Pseudonymity in Pauline Scholarship
a. Q. morton, one of the leading voices in the 1960s advocating pseud-
onymity in the Pauline corpus (not only for the Pastorals but for every-
thing but the Hauptbriefe), based his conclusions on a stylometric
linguistic methodology that he also applied to a corpus of english litera-
ture. in 1994, he assisted Kathryn ann lindskoog in applying the same
method to show that c. S. lewis did not write the book posthumously
published in his name entitled The Dark Tower.2 the lindskoog–morton
theory met with mixed response; but, despite relative acceptance, the
proposal was seriously wounded by alastair fowler’s personal report of
lewis’s involvement in The Dark Tower.3 We know that morton’s methods
2 Kathryn ann lindskoog, Light in the Shadow Lands: Protecting the Real C. S. Lewis
(Portland: multnomah Books, 1994). this story can be found in harry lee Poe, “Shedding
light on the dark tower: a c. S. lewis mystery Solved,” CT 51 (2007): 1–3.
3 in 2003, a former student of lewis, alastair fowler, published an article in the Yale
Review documenting his personal interactions and discussions with his mentor during
his writing of The Dark Tower (including a pre-publication review of the manuscript),
to the point of being able to explain the style variation on the basis of lewis’s struggle
with writer’s block during that season of his life. See alastair fowler, “c. S. lewis: Super-
visor,” Yale Review 91 (october 2003): 64–80; cf. also Jeffery r. thompson and John r.
rasp, “did c. S. lewis write the dark tower? an examination of the Small-Sample Prop-
erties of the thisted-efron tests of authorship,” Austrian Journal of Statistics 2 (2009):
71–82.